Web to mobile: lost in transition?

27 October 2011

Customers are flocking to the mobile web - or the web as it is available to, and accessible from mobile devices like cell phones, smartphones and tablets. However, even though customers now have access to superior technology, many find that mobile experiences are inconsistent with what they expect via their PCs. A consistent cross-channel experience is now essential.

An inconsistent end-to-end experience

Users are increasingly making use of mobile devices – smartphones and tablets – in preference to desktops and laptops. Even ‘non-smart’ devices enable users to browse the web and check their email accounts (especially web-based accounts.)

Customers are looking for an end to end experience independent of what device they’re using to access their information. The problem is that not many companies provide a seamless experience yet – and even if they do, it still has a long way to go before it can meet customer expectations. 

A consistent cross-channel experience is now essential as customers connect to email and social campaigns, especially given that an ever-growing proportion of Facebook traffic is mobile, and that many users are now exclusively using mobile devices to check their email. 

Customers expect a seamless marketing experience, as well 

Customers have long become accustomed to the way pre-mobile campaigns are interconnected: email-based content offers links to web pages, and social media links to - and from - web pages and email connections. It all happens quickly, sleekly, unnoticed and uninterrupted. 

Now that customers have access to email, websites, blogs and social media wherever they are, through their mobile devices, they expect the same seamless interconnectivity, allowing them to recreate a near-desktop experience on their mobile devices. For their part, marketers, who strive to get their brand-message across, know that the ability to seamlessly reach customers-on-the-go is an imperative, because customers should be exposed to the marketing message, irrespective of the device, tool or channel they use. 

The problem is that mobile users are still facing an inconsistent digital experience.  The advent of QR codes, for instance, offers to simplify accessing content while on the go, but many campaigns simply link to a standard web page (or the home page of a website) instead of to a dedicated mobile-optimised campaign landing page. 

In other cases, email campaigns that work perfectly through the desktop fail horribly when accessed through a mobile device. Many marketers still implement a mobile website separate from their main website, and attempt to redirect users from one to the other automatically. Unfortunately this may result in a lost opportunity as customers receiving an email campaign on their mobile are then unable to access the content they requested on the mobile website. This is not only a missed opportunity, but also a complete waste of the marketer’s budget. 

Search marketing is another often-neglected area. When users click through from a Google search page on their mobile device, they are presented with content that is inconsistent with what was originally listed in the search results. This inconsistency could negatively impact a business's position in mobile search, and will certainly frustrate the customer. 

One can find similar examples in social network campaigns. Users follow, for instance, a mobile link to a specific Facebook tab, only to find that it is not optimised for mobile reading and that they cannot access the content. Consistency is more than a design issue, however. One should always keep in mind that information is the main currency of all online transactions. The main driving force involved in customers’ quest for information is context. 

Marketers have been deeply involved in the creation and maintenance of customers’ online experience for almost 2 decades. During this time, technology helped brand owners to access customers through a variety of communication channels. It is vitally important to remember that mobile experience is but one of the popular avenues customers use to search, identify, access, use and exchange information.